Price Manipulation in Victorian Equity Markets

This project aims to empirically examine the presence of stock price manipulation in a pre-20th century market, an underexplored research area in the financial history literature. Using an exceptionally detailed archival dataset containing transaction-level records from the Aberdeen Stock Exchange during the period 1845–1891, the study will shed light on whether, and to what extent, manipulative trading behaviours occurred in early stock markets. The findings will offer valuable insights into financial misconduct and investor behaviour during the Victorian era, contributing to the research of both economic historians and financial economists. Another key output of the project will be the creation of a new, publicly available dataset of historical stock prices and transactions from a provincial market, enhancing resources for future research.